I've read stuff like that Azmat and I must say that it is absolute nonsense. I'd like to see the premises specifically behind why different people say that because that would make it easier to argue their particular assertion. Otherwise you end up with a dissertation on maximal strength versus speed or power. We've actually discussed some aspects of this I think around here somewhere, but I'll start my own version of those statements :)

- If one cranks out a RM without struggle (subjective, and nonspecific?) then one is not doing a RM

- If someone spends time grinding out the RM's then…that's all we know until we know more

Even without getting into technicalities there is so much left on the table with those statements and they are built on some very faulty assumptions.

For instance, you might have someone who routinely cranks out RM's without a lot of struggle, you throw a few pounds more pounds on, and they fail. To make the leap from there to "they would benefit from speed work" is asinine.

I have actually found, for instance, that many people "fail" in those circumstances because they have never actually had enough experience with "grinding" up a real maximal weight. They are in essence, afraid of it and they lose composure.

Matter of fact, see a video where some guy is grinding out a maximal deadlift. You get all the form police come out nitpicking his form. So we say, look, that was a true maximal lift, it's never going to look perfect. So the form police, they say, you should never lift without "perfect" form. Right there, you have the guys that are "cranking out RM's without struggle"! It's built into their philosophy that they would NEVER struggle. And this is a lot of the trainees and a lot of the strength coaches have it built right into their training culture. Because a lot of coaches do not want their trainees to miss many lifts for whatever reason.

You could say, basically, that if you've never truly been exposed to a maximal lift then you create this environment where you always leave a little bit in the tank. Or, in other words, what looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck is probably a duck. Occam's Razor at work.

I agree with what Eric's said. If you can crank out a RM without struggle you aren't doing a true RM. Like Eric said, struggle is very subjective and individual dependent.

Let's take this conversation away from the big 3 (squat, dead, bench) and move it to pullups. If you're grinding out a heavy pullup, would you switch to speed pullups? Or would you use other tools and tricks to build on that?

Matter of fact, see a video where some guy is grinding out a maximal deadlift. You get all the form police come out nitpicking his form. So we say, look, that was a true maximal lift, it's never going to look perfect. So the form police, they say, you should never lift without "perfect" form. Right there, you have the guys that are "cranking out RM's without struggle"! It's built into their philosophy that they would NEVER struggle. And this is a lot of the trainees and a lot of the strength coaches have it built right into their training culture. Because a lot of coaches do not want their trainees to miss many lifts for whatever reason.

I agree. The form police usually see true maximal efforts as unsafe. While form may not be perfect, it is not automatically made dangerous. Some people lift submaximal weights with dangerous form! We don't even have to get into the argument that the form police do not necessarily even know what "perfect" form is.

The strength trainee says "Why sacrifice intensity when I can sacrifice volume"
The bodybuilder says "Why sacrifice intensity when I can sacrifice form"

"We are not sport, when there is a sport issue, we are not so good. The boxer is much better than us at boxing. But he will have to protect his balls if he wants to punch us."

Let's take this conversation away from the big 3 (squat, dead, bench) and move it to pullups. If you're grinding out a heavy pullup, would you switch to speed pullups? Or would you use other tools and tricks to build on that?

Pullups are always a good way to cut through the crap. Especially once you realize that for many many people, even huge muscular people, one pullup can represent a "maximal" attempt. If you put a person on an assisted pullup machine you aren't going to be worried about them doing "speed reps" because they are grinding out their body weight pullups and if they did do a lighter percentage of bodyweight, via the assist, very speedy, would this somehow magically lead to an easy bodyweight pullup without that trainee having to lift higher and higher percentages of his body weight first on the machine? The answer is an easy no. No amount of very "light" assisted pullups, done very fast, would cause that trainee to be able to hoist up his bodyweight without struggle, if struggle was there before. And yet, people have no trouble believing that a bunch of speedy bench presses done with half your current max on bench press will result in you throwing on an extra 10lbs to your max.

By the same token, a 150lbs guy that has trouble being able to do a pullup with an additional 30 pound load without "struggle" is not going to think that if he does gets on the assisted pullup machine and has it take 65 pounds for him (about 43% of his bodyweight so that he is pulling "50%" of his target load), does a cycle of "speed work", that is going to magically lead to him being able to do the +30lbs "easy".

By the same token, a 150lbs guy that has trouble being able to do a pullup with an additional 30 pound load without "struggle" is not going to think that if he does gets on the assisted pullup machine and has it take 65 pounds for him (about 43% of his bodyweight so that he is pulling "50%" of his target load), does a cycle of "speed work", that is going to magically lead to him being able to do the +30lbs "easy".

That makes sense, I really don't know whats the problem with grinding, a lot of people seem to demonize it, even going to the extent of saying that grinding out reps, makes you "slower".
In any case returning to the initial topic of this discussion; when is speed work warranted? From what I gather it has to do with performance on submaximal lifts, i.e. if the reps are performed slowly, repeatedly by the trainee (irrespective of load), then speed work might help him. Am I in the right direction? or way of course? Speed work in the end is a another means of training the CNS right?

Let me rephrase the question… when and how should one use Plyometrics. How to identify one needs to work on speed and how is that introduced in a meso.

From the replies it looks like we are talking about WSB style DE in particular. My personal experience, Repping out those sets helped me with gear. I am not sure if it was really the speed, perhaps I just got better at box squats doing so many of them. I never stuck to the 50 - 60% of the RM…went up to as much weight I could do with speed. Sometimes even 75% and that helped. In that period of 6 months, my squat went up from 500 to 600. It is possible that I just learned to squat in a suit..thats a normal transfer I believe.

Some people argue that OLY lifts will improve the speed. Does that mean, it improves overall CNS response or signalling of those body parts which are worked. I never found that argument sound as the speed gained (even if it did) lacks specificity.

Jumps, kettlebell swings, med ball throws etc that are used by various schools to test a trainee and determine his training. How is that done… I read some of that stuff in books of authors like Dr. Verkoshansky, Dr Zatsiorsky and so on.

Yeah, we responded in a way that suggested "WSB style" DE work in particular because those kinds of statements are almost always referring to that.

Does this sum up to speed work is just not needed.

No. My responses were made specifically to speak to those statements Azmat recounted. Me saying that those statements are BS is not the same thing as me saying that speed training is not needed. So the conversation now is, how do we know when we need speed work? So, my point was ONLY that those statements are NOT how we know.

I want to respond to this thread and I am going to. This is me marking my space. The whole Speed thing is SUCH a huge topic I think I should write a few pages with examples. We have me, Kanishk and Bijoy to go over specifically (as examples).

Mark Twain:
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."
"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow."

Speed work = DE

Westside has popularized Dynamic Effort (DE) Training. They restrict themselves to working in the 50-60% range (of their 1RM).

My take on this:

Westsiders are largely geared lifters and like most Powerlifters (even the raw ones) their priorities lie with Squats, Bench and Deadlift in that order.

If they're doing ME Squats, they usually do DE Deadlifts (or variants of each).

If they're doing ME Deadlifts (very rare), they usually do DE Squats (or variants of each).

What this sums up to is prioritizing certain lifts and working at a manageable range with the other.

By "manageable range" I mean distributing fatigue efficiently. This is a whole new can of worms.

Speed Work - General

You can do Speed Work before you do your Maximal end work sets. This is actually good at certain times and you should restrict the volume. So for example, a trainee who is getting used to say lifting in a certain weight range, can work within 50-60% of his/her 1RM for multiple doubles and triples before going into the 90%+ work range within that workout.

You can try to focus on form and maintain strength by hitting your 1RM or very close to your 1RM and then spending a decent amount of time working in the speed-strength range (50 to even 80%). Kanishk has been doing this for some time now (before he began SDT).

Not everybody needs to do speed work. I generally like to work on "speed" only when I think form needs to be honed in. For example, Bijoy is a slow puller. Whether he is lifting 200 or 255 or 315: his bar speed is VERY slow. This also has to do with him being a beginner but even so, this is a good point to focus on speed in his 245-265 range. If perhaps he had been a fast puller (relatively speaking) till the 300 range and then slow at 315+, then doing speed work is not a solution in and of itself.

I have to run. These are just some of my thoughts. Eric will probably have more to add to this.

There are MANY ways to do Speed work and like all things: nothing is a necessity. You don't "have" to do Speed work and then again: you don't "have" to NOT do it either. But to make it the central focus of your training when your goals are to get "strong" isn't such a good idea either :-)

So what I am saying is: you can have your ME and DE work on the same day but the real question to ask is: why do you specifically need DE work all through the year in your template?

You CAN have two ME days (per se) and you can do a lot of different things with it.

Mark Twain:
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."
"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow."